Wipe yourself with a corporate logo

A Library Journal story:
Toilet paper printed with advertisements will appear in the bathrooms of the Port Chester-Rye Brook, NY, Public Library in October, according to The Journal News. The paper is 100 percent recycled, two-ply, and printed with soy-based ink. Venues that use the paper receive it for free, making it a potentially attractive way for cash-strapped libraries to reduce spending. (Advertisers pay $99 for 20,000 advertisements that appear on approximately 160 rolls.)

I would find it rather creepy to put a corporate logo on my ... myself. In that way. Ugh.

It may sound silly, but little things add up: According to EducationBug, the library must stock enough toilet paper for 180,183 annual visitors (plus a staff of 15). Plugging that figure into Kimberly-Clark’s professional use calculator yields more than 36,000 cases, meaning the library could be saving $70,000 per year or more on the deal. (Library Director Robin Lettieri could not immediately be reached for comment.)

Yeah, a substantial amount of dollars, fer sher, but ...

ex-Libraries now Learning Centers

An article in Library Journal addresses a current in the library world: how will libraries deal with funding cuts?

Trenton’s un-libraries are still steaming ahead. Mayor Tony Mack reopened the former Cadwalader branch on June 4, according to the Times of Trenton. That’s the third of four library branches that had been closed due to budget cuts, leaving Trenton with only its main library operational. As LJ reported, Trenton’s Mayor and Council couldn’t provide the approximately $800,000 the Trenton Free Public Library (TFPL) required to keep the four branches open part time. Instead, the Mayor chose to reopen the buildings as “learning center libraries” not under the control of the library board or administration for a fraction of the cost. They can’t legally be called libraries, since New Jersey state law requires libraries to be governed by the library board and run by librarians.

Rather than leaving the buildings closed, Trenton has reconfigured them, relying on a small paid staff and volunteers.


The New Jersey Library Association has taken a dim view of staffing former library branches with unpaid and part-time workers rather than certified librarians. Under state law, public buildings that offer library services must be controlled by library boards.

Some might call that viewpoint spitting into the wind. What is the alternative, when there is not enough money?

TFPL Director Kimberly Matthews told LJ that the TFPL has proposed a number of alternatives for “providing additional library services throughout the community” in its 2013 draft budget, which was presented to Hutchinson on May 4. “We would love to explore a variety of different options of library service in an economically challenged city such as Trenton,” said Matthews. Options include “an Internet or Internet/bookmobile, and possibly book vending machines like they have in San Francisco.”

Without sufficient funds, of course, the public loses, but, is something better than nothing?

Outdoor library

from a Twitter post: An Outdoor Library in Ghent by Massimo Bartolini.

A young man writes: I personally haven’t visited a library in longer than I care to say, but if I happened upon this public outdoor library installed in the middle of a Belgian vineyard I would be tempted to grab a cork screw and picnic blanket to make a day of it. The outdoor library entitled Bookyard was built by Italian artist Massimo Bartolini for the Belgian art festival TRACK: A Contemporary City Conversation in Ghent. Visitors are invited to peruse the stacks and are free to take any book they find for a small donation at a designated box. Hopefully they empty the shelves before it rains. (via designboom)

Smartphone

In a MarketWatch column, Süreyya Ciliv, the chief executive officer of Turkcell, is quoted: “Turkey has changed. Here, now, my son won’t be held back,” Ciliv added. “By going to school in Turkey, he might even be better off. He gets to experience the dynamism of Turkey without sacrificing the information he has access to.” 

He adds: “Historically, the library was the center of knowledge, which is why in previous generations the Turkish businessman wanted to go abroad. Today, the library, all the knowledge my son might need, is right in here. The truth is, demand for our services in Turkey is increasing so rapidly that the biggest challenge for Turkcell is how to meet it.”

And what is the challenge for libraries? Perhaps twofold: to convince Mr. Ciliv that his smartphone is the conduit for all knowledge, and to convince him and others that, somehow, libraries are relevant.

Open Access Spreads to Miami University

From ALA Magazine:

The librarians of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, joined the ranks of the worldwide open-access (OA) movement May 14 by voting to make their scholarly articles freely available in the university’s institutional repository, the Scholarly Commons. Based on Harvard University’s model policy, MU’s open-access principles take effect immediately and make the libraries the first department on Miami’s campus to successfully pass an open access policy.

NovelNY

Provided by the New York State Library, NOVELNY connects New Yorkers to 21st century information. NOVELNY is supported with temporary federal Library Services and Technology Act funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The New York Library Initiative is a proposal for permanent state funding for NOVELNY, a pilot project for the Statewide Internet Library

Robolibraries

Story in the Chicago Tribune.

Libraries short on cash, parking and staff are looking at self-service options to reach customers during off hours without adding work for employees. Tucked into vending machines or train station lockers, robolibraries allow patrons to pick up or drop off DVDs and books at their convenience during a time when many suburban libraries are cutting operating hours. Others might take the form of kiosks that serve nearly the same function as satellite branches and can allow patrons to access books, movies, videos, music, audio books, games or anything else the library lends. Eva Poole, president-elect of the Public Library Association, said she sees robolibraries as part of what people expect today from their libraries. "People don't want to be limited by time or location," Poole said. "It's instant gratification. They want to get it when they want it."

Novelist fights tide, open own bookstore

After a beloved local bookstore closed here last December and another store was lost to the Borders bankruptcy, this city once known as the Athens of the South, rich in cultural tradition and home to Vanderbilt University, became nearly barren of bookstores.

A collective panic set in among Nashville’s reading faithful. But they have found a savior in Ann Patchett, the best-selling novelist who grew up here. On Wednesday, Ms. Patchett, the acclaimed author of “Bel Canto” and “Truth and Beauty,” will open Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore that is the product of six months of breakneck planning and a healthy infusion of cash from its owner.

“I have no interest in retail; I have no interest in opening a bookstore,” Ms. Patchett said, serenely sipping tea during a recent interview at her spacious pink brick house here. “But I also have no interest in living in a city without a bookstore.”

Even among the young there is an interest in holding a physical book, browsing, hanging out. But it is a tough time to own a bookstore. I just got done helping a patron who wants to read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, but can not imagine lugging around a 630 page book, and does not believe she can finish it in fourteen days. We talked about the Kindle Fire, and, for her, as for so many others, ebooks are a solution to the problem of not having enough time at home.

Cultural leaders convened meetings in the public library to discuss who could step in and open a new bookstore. One idea, to start a co-op requiring small investments of $1,000, never got off the ground. 

And they met at the library, the public library.

Into the future

Public libraries sometimes get a bad rap for not utilizing the latest technology, but in reality more of them are pushing their services onto smartphones. Checking a book out on a smartphone rather than at a counter is becoming a more common occurrence. Santa Clara County, Calif., provides library services via mobile devices through its SCCL Mobile tool. The tool allows patrons to locate libraries as well as find library hours of operation. Through a text message feature, patrons can receive library contact information through the tool’s Ask a Librarian feature.
In June, Los Angeles Public Library staff announced that its Silver Lake branch was the first public library to launch a smartphone app that provides a self-checkout feature. With the MyMobileLibrary app, patrons can securely check out items from anywhere within the library.
Some libraries are also supporting apps like CardStar and KeyRing, which allow a smartphone to store the bar-code data for a library card. In essence, the smartphone becomes the library card.

xISBN

20 April 2011

Take heed

Sign on door of Technical Services:

NO BROWSING, LOITERING OR HANDLING OF ANY ITEM WHATSOEVER IN THIS ROOM WILL BE TOLERATED

Sign looks as if it were posted in the days of shushing, yet it remains on the door. Watch out.

Civic Engagement Trumps ‘Shhh!’

Steven Holl Architects - A rendering of Steven Holl’s design for a new library at Hunters Point in Queens.

There may be no better example of the worrying state of American architecture than the career of Steven Holl. At 63, this New York architect is widely considered one of the most original talents of his era. His work has influenced a generation of architects and students. And over the last decade or so he has become a star in faraway places like Scandinavia and China, where he is celebrated as someone able to imbue even the most colossal urban projects with lyricism.

So when the Queens Library Board of Trustees approved the design of the new Hunters Point community library this month, it was a well-deserved and long overdue breakthrough. The project, done in collaboration with Mr. Holl’s partner Chris McVoy and scheduled to begin construction early next year, will stand on a prominent waterfront site just across the East River from the United Nations. It is a striking expression of the continuing effort to shake the dust off of the city’s aging libraries and recast them as lively communal hubs, and should go far in bolstering the civic image of Queens.

Someone knows my name [electronic resource]

A patron asked for this book, and, curious, I went to take a look. Searching the title, I saw that the OPAC contains a record for an electronic resource: an excerpt from the book is read, and can be accessed through a hyperlink. Whew, libraries racing into the future (well, the present, but, still).

Not too early?

Chicago vies with Hawaii for Obama presidential library

Already?

Olive: Voters approve library funding

Published: Tuesday, November 02, 2010

OLIVE — Town voters on Tuesday approved, 1,280-419, a plan to support the Olive Free Library with $129,000 in annual town funding. The approval of the ballot proposition allows the library to receive $129,000 annually until the amount is changed through a future ballot proposition.

The library currently receives $43,000 from the town and another $54,000 from the library’s Bishop Trust.

Library board President Mary Ann Shepard has said funding cuts over the past several years had hurt basic services in a rural community where the library serves as a cultural center, educational resource, and job search facility.

Running the Books

Running the books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian.
Avi Steinberg.  399 pages. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday. $26.

[One library has it as Running the Books, another as a Biography.]

Fascinating review, or rather, review of a fascinating book written by a man who was a prison librarian for a couple of years.

£ 1 for a library

Item in most current issue of ALA e-newsletter, from England. Library in a phonebox

Mack & Mabel

A patron called for this book, specifically one song in it: I won't send roses. Found it, set it aside for her, told her it'd be held at the Reference Desk.

Literally minutes later a young man came over and asked for the book. He is her brother; she is in Massachusetts, working in the theater, and needs this song.  He will go home, scan it, and attach the file to an email.

Yay for high technology.

O, how true

Unshelved gets it spot-on again, and again.

How often one wishes to say so.

Bookless library

Stanford University prepares for 'bookless library'


One chapter is closing — and another is opening — as Stanford University moves toward the creation of its first "bookless library." Box by box, decades of past scholarship are being packed up and emptied from two old libraries, Physics and Engineering, to make way for the future: a smaller but more efficient and largely electronic library that can accommodate the vast, expanding and interrelated literature of Physics, Computer Science and Engineering.

"The role of this new library is less to do with shelving and checking out books — and much more about research and discovery," said Andrew Herkovic, director of communications and development at Stanford Libraries.

Well put, indeed.

Libraries are the very heart of the research university, the center for scholarship. But the accumulation of information online is shifting their sense of identity. For 40 years, the metal shelves of the modest Physics and Engineering libraries were magnets to thousands of students and faculty, including Nobel Prize winners Douglas Osheroff, Robert Laughlin and Steven Chu, who now directs the U.S. Department of Energy. On the wall of the Physics Library are 16 original prints by photographer Ansel Adams, dedicated to pioneering physicist Russell Varian. A cardboard cutout of a cheerful Albert Einstein greets visitors. A playful collection of clocks — illustrating the randomness of time — decorate a wall.

The future library — on the second floor of "The Octagon," the centerpiece of the university's new science and engineering quad that opens later this year — will offer a stark contrast. It is only half the size of the current Engineering Library, but saves its space for people, not things. It features soft seating, "brainstorm islands," a digital bulletin board and group event space. There are few shelves and it will feature a self-checkout system.

It is developing a completely electronic reference desk, and there will be four Kindle 2 e-readers on site. Its online journal search tool, called xSearch, can scan 28 online databases, a grant directory and more than 12,000 scientific journals.

Several factors are driving the shift. Stanford is running out of room, restricted by an agreement with Santa Clara County that limits how much it can grow. Increasingly, the university seeks to preserve precious square footage. Adding to its pressures is the steady flow of books. Stanford buys 100,000 volumes a year — or 273 every day.

"Most of the libraries on campus are approaching saturation," Herkovic said. "For every book that comes in, we've got to find another book to send off." This fierce competition for space on campus means that many, perhaps most, books will be shipped 38 miles away to a Livermore storage facility.

Stanford's plight is not unique. Four miles off its Durham, N.C., campus, Duke University has a high-density storage facility, with shelves 30 feet high, to hold 15 million books. Harvard's repository is 35 miles away in the rural town of Southborough, Mass.

"You just get to the point where you're busting at the seams," said Lori Goetsch, president of the Association of College and Research Libraries and dean of libraries at Kansas State in Manhattan, Kan. — which stores its books more than 80 miles away, in Lawrence.

The sciences are the perfect place to test bookless libraries, librarians say. In math, online books tend to render formulas badly. And those in the humanities, arts and social sciences still embrace the serendipitous discoveries made while browsing. Johanna Drucker, UCLA professor of information studies, asks: "What version of a work should be digitized as representative? Leo Tolstoy's original Russian text? Or the Maude translation? Should we digitize the sanitized version of Mark Twain's classics, or the originals?"

That serendipity can also work in the sciences, no?

But technical information is readily and conveniently accessed online. "Physics was one of the first disciplines to really develop a strong electronic presence," Goetsch said. Science and engineering students agree, saying there is little nostalgia for paper.

"As far as research articles go, physics publication is already essentially entirely online," said physics graduate student Daniel Weissman. "And old journal editions from before the Internet era have largely been digitized, so you can get those articles online too. So that just leaves reference books — and yeah, you're starting to see more and more of those in online versions, too."


But the transition is tougher for Physics librarian Stella Ota, who is responsible for the fate of thousands of old books as she prepares for the June 9 closure. "It is challenging — I'll look at a book and say, 'This is important work, but not currently used,' " she said. So the 1937 edition of Webel's Technical Dictionary, German-English, is moving to Livermore. So is the huge and heavy Carnegie Atlas of Galaxies, with glossy photos. "Or perhaps it is worn, or damaged, or food was spilled," so it will be given away, she said. That is the fate of the 1970-79 Bibliography of Astronomy, as well as the decrepit Selected Physical Constants. A lucky few will be selected for the few shelves at the new library.


"When I look back, then there is a certain sadness for me. Any change is hard. And there are moments of joy, when I see bookplates of former faculty who owned and donated the book, and sometimes made notes on the side," Ota said. "But looking forward, I see an opportunity to create something new."